When reading multiple texts about controversial scientific issues, learners must construct a coherent mental representation of the issue based on conflicting information that can be more or less belief-consistent. The present experiment investigated the effects of text-belief consistency on the situation model and memory for text. Students read…

Examined the different influences of comprehension-skill and domain-knowledge components on learning from text. Found that learning from an expanded text with explicit causal relations was related to reading comprehension skill rather than prior knowledge, whereas learning from an unexpanded text that did not spell out causes was a function of…

Explored the information processing abilities associated with expertise in literature in high school and college students. Found that literary experts were superior to novices in gist-level recall, extraction of interpretations, and breadth of aspects addressed of literary texts but not in comprehension of scientific texts. (AA)

Compared reading practices of historians reading highly familiar texts with those reading familial but unfamiliar texts. Found that:(1) historians read intertextually, using general document-reading knowledge, including identification and interpretation schemata; (2) general knowledge interacts with topic-specific expertise; (3) identification and…

Compared construction of meaning in poetry for experts (PhD English candidates) and novices (undergraduates or high school students). Found that for experts, knowledge was an important component of poetic communication. Novices had well-developed expectations for understanding poetry as discourse. Experts used productive interpretive strategies to…

Investigated the effect of causal structure revisions to school texts on the comprehension of more- and less- skilled undergraduates. Found that readers at both skill levels benefited from the revisions but only for the difficult text. (JPB)

Two experiments investigated the role of text coherence in junior high school students' comprehension of science texts. Found that text coherence improved readers' comprehension, but also that giving readers with sufficient background knowledge an incoherent text that forced them to infer unstated relations engaged them in compensatory processing,…